In this, we now know what languages are being used by the school children and, therefore, other members of the Icelandic society. Second, unsurprisingly, Iceland remains to be commended: the country appears to have worked tirelessly in “keeping the hand on the pulse” of the schools. We therefore may well expect this linguistic landscape to challenge the previously ubiquitously harmonious school assessment results ( Thordardóttir 2020) which should, in turn, lead to revisiting of policies towards other languages and their speakers ( Ragnarsdóttir 2018, a.o.). First, the traditional homogeneity of the population and the relative correspondence between the national language and culture has been changing: according to Ragnarsdóttir and colleagues, up to 80% of children in some Icelandic schools are growing up in multilingual households ( Ragnarsdóttir and Lefever 2018 Ragnarsdóttir and Tran 2019, i.a.). Three things can be inferred from the data above.
The most well-represented languages outside of Icelandic currently represented in Icelandic schools are shown in the top part of the table, and the least well-represented languages are at the bottom. 1 Approximately half of these children are likely to have been born in Iceland and can be unequivocally expected to have the knowledge of both Icelandic and their other language(s) 54% are Icelandic citizens.
Overall, according to Statistics Iceland 2020, 14.5–15.5% (preschool-compulsory) school children are exposed to languages other than Icelandic at home, representing every habitable continent and over 50 languages. Home to 368,792 people ( Statistics Iceland 2021), Iceland carefully tracks its populations across a variety of domains, including linguistic backgrounds of children in schools. 2019), as well as Lithuanian Sign Language, Polish Sign Language, Portuguese Sign Language and Irish Sign Language (Communication Center for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing, Ivanova, p.c.). Over 90% of Icelanders speak Icelandic natively, while about 10% of the present inhabitants are native speakers of recent immigrant languages: in descending order in terms of the number of users are Polish, Lithuanian and English ( Hilmarsson-Dunn and Kristinsson 2010 Stefánsdóttir et al. Its official national primary language is Icelandic ( de facto and de jure). Its cultural values have been described as equality, high work ethic, positive attitude, despite major societal changes ( Minelgaite et al. 2020 Jónsdóttir and Ragnarsdóttir 2010 Halldórsdóttir et al. Iceland is known for its progressive values, including education ( Knox-Hayes et al. We analyze the current situation focusing on the issues of bilingualism and biliteracy (vis-à-vis indigeneity and endangerment), explain the reason for the state of affairs by contextualizing the barrier to both for signers, and offer an explicit path forward which articulates the responsibilities of the power structures as well as potential outcomes related to revitalization, should these responsibilities be fulfilled. However, we show that as a country that has committed itself to linguistic equality as well as the support of indigenous languages under the United Nations Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous People, Iceland still has a way to go-both in terms of language attitudes and the associated implementations. Unlike other indigenous endangered languages (e.g., Sámi), or other sign languages (e.g., American Sign Language, ASL), ÍTM has received certain recognition typically associated with equitable language policy-by law, it is considered the “first language” of the deaf/hard of hearing Icelanders further, Iceland overtly states that ÍTM-signing children must be educated bilingually. The paper discusses the implementation of a bilingual education language policy in the context of endangered indigenous sign language-Icelandic Sign Language (íslenskt táknmál, ÍTM).
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